Two Reasons I’m Looking Forward to the End of January

I can feel myself getting back into the swing of sewing and, to that end, have bought a couple of new dressmaking patterns and the fabric to go with them, I know, I know, I already have plenty of patterns and fabric but I needed to be newly inspired. That’s my excuse and I feel it’s a good one.

But first! I really need to get my hatbox quilt wall hanging off my WIP list and up on the wall so that I don’t feel guilty about starting a new project. ‘What?’ I hear you ask -‘ since when did she care about such things?’ Well, since recently and I don’t know how long it will last so I’m making the most of it.

A sneak preview for you – the clips will not be part of the finished project I promise you.

This should actually be finished today or tomorrow but Kate – with whom I am supposed to be ‘doing’ this hatbox project – likes to see progress reports and so I thought I’d make her happy. Kate is making a full size quilt and hand quilting the whole thing so is obviously not so far advanced but we started off by saying we would post our progress on the last day of each month. In the last quarter of 2017 this wasn’t possible for me so I’m a bit behind but, no matter, I thought I’d post the progress today and then the finished project on the 31st and all will be right with my World – especially as it will also be the end of Dry January 🙂

You may remember I have elicited your opinions on several occasions about whether a certain block would fit in with the rest of them or not, which layout of several options you preferred, etc. etc. All opinions duly considered and mostly ignored of course but that’s what makes it fun.

Well, when it came to adding the sashing in between the blocks I couldn’t be bothered to dig out my old posts and photos to see what had been decided so flung them down on the floor any which way and thought ‘Aha, that looks good, how wonderful a random flinging can be’. So I took a photo.

Then, I looked at the photo and immediately saw that I had placed some of the hatboxes higher on their backgrounds than others so things weren’t lining up. Disaster! If I ever make this quilt again that is just one of the many things I would look out for which I should have done the first time of course but you live and learn – though sometimes I think I just live. A couple of the other things I would do differently are to make the ‘wallpapers’ all the same and hand quilt them – I’ve no excuse as I made them as quilt- as -you -go blocks so it wouldn’t have been too difficult.

Still, moving on……

I was forced to put all the ‘lower’ boxes on the top row so that they would (more or less) line up with each other so, in the end, my layout was decided for me albeit not by you. Thank you for your help and opinions anyway.

You can see above that I put vertical strips of sashing on the blocks and joined each of the two sections of six blocks with two horizontal strips. This meant there was only one long (ish) vertical strip to grapple with down the centre.

My troubles then started as I wanted to put wider sashing – some might call them borders – around the edges. My sashing fabric is another Liberty tana lawn which has a sort of wood grain effect that I hope will reinforce the impression of shelving – an impression helped by having wider woodgrain top and sides I feel. I experimented several times with top, bottom and batting layers until I found a method that worked for me. I can’t tell you how much unpicking was indulged in and how many anglo saxon words were retrieved from my memory and bandied about the place. Luckily, I only had one helper and she doesn’t mind a bit of cursing just so long as it isn’t directed at her.

Here she is watching me hand stitch the back sashing down – I suppose she is giving me a bit of an ‘old fashioned’ look. Perhaps I’ll mind my Ps and Qs in future. I won’t go into the mechanics of quilt-as-you-go here because if you are not a quilter you will be bored to tears and, if you are, you probably already know about it. Basically, it avoids having to wrestle a large quilt (or medium sized wall hanging in this case) under a domestic sewing machine but it can also make hand quilting a more manageable and portable project.

So, here’s the back which I almost like as much as the front but the photo was taken before I attached a hanging sleeve or binding.

Mr. Tialys was sought out – he was in his ‘shed’ – to root through his wood stash and find something suitable for a hanger and I made him asked whether he would kindly put the fitting up on the bedroom wall before disappearing to work in the U.K. for the week. He also retrieved some anglo saxon from his vocabulary (which definitely was directed at me) but did the deed and that means I will be able to take a nice photo or two and post the finished article on the 31st January, perhaps with a glass of wine to hand 😉

But first I have to hand stitch that binding down on the back – where’s my pain relieving crafting glove?

when I first saw this post in my reader, I thought ‘oh, Kate’s made some new blocks’ before I realised that this was a post form you and that you have been making hat box blocks too… I blame insufficient coffee for my confusion since I knew perfectly well that you were making a hat box hanging. I’m looking forward to seeing it finished – I love the idea of wood-grain to make it look like shelves. But, don’t overdo it with your hand… a day or two extra won’t make any difference in terms of the finished object and may make all the difference to your hand.

Hah! You beat me to it. I have just drafted my post for tomorrow, on the basis that I will be doing Other Things then. Your almost-finished hanging looks great, and I’m looking forward to seeing the product of all that salty language (there’s nothing to beat some solid, knobbly Anglo Saxon for swearing, is there?). Although I marginally prefer the first layout, the second one, where the hatboxes are aligned is also pretty good, certainly better than earlier layouts I’ve seen. I think I’m looking forward to the end of Dry January on your behalf; I think a large glass of something is called for and I’m certain it will add a certain cheerfulness to your report! Once I’ve finished my quilt, do you fancy doing another appliqué something-or-other together?

Well, I got rid of a couple of the more quirky blocks and will probably use them for cushions or send them off to a community quilting project or something so the layout wasn’t so problematic.
Funnily enough – I though Mr. T. would, when the time came, refuse to have a quilted wall hanging in the bedroom but, actually, he even suggested one for the lounge. Maybe a bookcase! I know you’ve already done one of those but, in principle, he’s obviously not averse to another of my ‘works of art’ being openly displayed so, yes, let’s go for it. We’ll have some time to research some possibilities.

I wouldn’t mind doing some Broderie Perse, it’s something I’ve always wanted to try. If that’s too complicated and you can’t be doing with it, how about something like Kaffe Fassett’s Rice Bowls? There are all sorts of things we could do with those, or I’d love to have a blue and white ‘china’ collection on a brilliantly coloured background. Lots of ideas…

Lordy! The word ‘broderie’ had me torn between running for the hills (not far) or dissolving into a useless puddle. I see it is actually appliqué so not so scary but it might be a little on the ‘chintzy’ side for me – although I haven’t delved too deep yet.
I have always liked the rice bowls not least because one of the colour schemes would go so well in my lounge which is red like in Jane Eyre 🙂 I’ve started a pinterest page and will have more of a search for inspiration when I’m not supposed to be hand stitching a binding .

Hmmm. I might go for it if it’s a QAYG project, not too large and my hands are completely better by then. Revealing my dodgy hand quilting to Blogland would be an act of bravery on my part but then my blog has always been a bit ‘warts and all’.
I will look further into the broderie perse – if you find any good images, send me the link – you may yet persuade me 😉

this is looking really good, Lynn and I love the choice of fabrics for joining together and the binding!
I always talk to myself, when crafting, to encourage myself especially when things go awry, and I’m pretty sure the cats think I’m talking to them lol.
Make sure you wear your Hande Eze mitten for all crafting, even if you think you hand feels a little better, just as a precautionary measure.
And I’m looking forward to seeing this hanging, on the wooden hanger Mr T so gallantly sorted out for you lol.

I will definitely wear ‘the glove’ Claire – I must buy another couple in case something happens to this one.
Hopefully, if things go to plan, the quilt will hang beautifully from it’s wooden hanger as if it is floating. I didn’t fancy a visible hanging device so spotted a tutorial to make something a Museum of Quilts (in America somewhere) uses to hang the ones they have on display.

Haha! Sounds like the quilts I made for both my daughters’ 18th birthdays. They got the pieced top wrapped up on the day and the actual finished quilt a year later.
There doesn’t seem to be the wide variety of curse words in French as in English – although I’m sure there are some I haven’t been exposed to. There is one main one which seems to cover most situations and you can indeed, spit it out quite viciously, but it’s just not the same.

No she’s just a hairy moggy – daughter of the local hairy moggy stud and one of a litter born in my neighbour’s barn. I took in her and her brother (who isn’t hairy) which bought my rescue cat population up to six. No more!! I had a look at some Maine Coon cat images and, yes, she does look similar doesn’t she – although she’s not XXL sized.

I couldn’t tell her size from that picture, but she (sorry I called her a He before!) looks very similar to our Maine Coon named Sampson that we had for over 10 years. He was a dear. The best cat we ever had. He died a few years ago and we still miss him.

That Yuki – she gets everywhere. She gets extra fluffy in the winter but, underneath, she’s quite tiny (she was the one that got stuck behind a wall for three days when she was only about 3 weeks old).

I’ve got a book like that but can never bring the appropriate phrase to mind when I need it – which is probably just as well. I don’t really mix in the sort of circles where swearing is the norm so I don’t need anything too abusive or complicated. However, I am a driver and some choice words certainly come in useful behind the wheel in France

I agree it’s probably best not to swear too much. I do love that book though, because it actually explain where the insults come from and give you some pretty interesting alternatives that aren’t exactly rude but are certainly colourful 😅I really do not miss driving in France, people are crazy, Australians are much calmer